What it’s about
This book looks at the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful, and asks the question what is the key to their success. What makes a high achiever different from everyone else.
Why you should read it
This book is an absolutely fascinating read, and any person who reads it will likely never be able to look at a “successful” person and an “unsuccessful” person in the same way ever again.
Basically Malcolm Gladwell highlights in superb fashion that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and not enough attention to where they are from, and more importantly what opportunities they have been given.
And he proves this by taking us on a truly enthralling journey, highlighting how a person’s culture, family, along with the generation they are born in, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringings along with much more, all added together are the defining factors of success rather than any natural inbuilt talent.
He also in his own way highlights just how much luck plays a part in whether a person becomes a high achiever or not, and some of the facts he highlights about how people become successful a truly staggering and will in all probability blow your mind. Perhaps the one that stunned me most is how the month you were born in has such an effect over your odds of becoming a high achiever, especially if you wish to become successful in sports.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Any person who wishes to be successful and who wishes to understand success will without a doubt greatly benefit from reading this book. The first half of the book is especially mind blowing reading, the second half perhaps drags a little at times but it is still all in all a great read.
Needless to say this book most certainly gets a thumbs up from me.
The Knowledge of Freedom 